Author and host of the hit OUTDOOR CHANNEL show SHOOTING GALLERY spouts off...

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

The Rabbit Hole...

I had dinner with some smart people a few days ago, and at some point — late in the meal — the conversation turned to the topic we all never mention...for lack of a better word, we called it, "The rabbit hole." The question was how far is this Administration and the progressive Left willing to push its war against the American people? Apparently we're not the only ones with the rabbit hole on our minds. This from the ever-thoughtful Sebastian at Shall Not Be Questioned:

Gun control advocates really do not understand the fire they are playing with, with much of what is being proposed. How many millions of Americans are you prepared to imprison? How many are you prepared to kill? What is the count of ruined lives, broken families, and ruin are you willing to inflict to try to achieve your rainbow farting unicorn utopia where every gun turns into a flower? Widespread disrespect for the law by millions of Americans is not going to bring that about, and in fact, may only serve to create larger unregulated markets, and far more willingness to engage in law breaking people would not be willing to engage in under normal circumstances.

As I have said for years, the controlling word in the phrase "gun control" is control, not gun. I've followed with interest many of the threads on various forums arguing about "terminology"...if, for instance, we all agreed to call black rifles "modern sporting rifles" or we were careful to never refer to firearms as "weapons." I used to agree pretty wholeheartedly with those arguments, but over the years I've come around to a different view. Our enemies aren't antigun, they're anti-people-with-guns. It's not the guns they hate...it's us.

How many articles and interviews have you heard recently with a person saying, "Boy, I'm glad I didn't have a gun when such and such happened, or I'd've have shot everyone dead!!!" I've seen a lot and it puzzles me. I get mad just like everybody else, but it has been a long time since I truly wanted to kill someone. Heck, I've been really pissed off when I was carrying a gun, and it never occurred to whip out my piece and blast away.

The reason there is no middle ground (and Mike Thompson, now would be a good time to take notes) is this war is between to fundamentally opposed world views. After living n New York City and spending a lot of time in California, I've come to see the fight as one between the adults and the perpetual children of the Nanny State. Those "children" envision a world where they are free to endlessly "act out," every person his or her own Lindsay Lohan., forever.

An adult in the room inhibits all that fun acting out, because the very presence of the adult casts into question the idea and the ideal of a perpetual adolescence. Our Founders envisioned a government working with adults, who understood the great issues of the day and were willing to step up and take their place in the country. The current Administration would like nothing better than a nation of permanent adolescents and those who owe their existence to the government, because those two groups are easy to please. It's like Alf the Wonder Beagle...no matter how mad she is at us, she can be bought off with a piece of bacon.

Anyway, enough armchair philosophy! Here are a couple of articles on the media. The first is why journalists so often get guns wrong:

The shooting at Sandy Hook has brought gun policy to the forefront of our national conversation. President Obama has pledged to act aggressively on the issue, having laid out a comprehensive plan, including new weapons regulations as well as law enforcement and public awareness programs, in the hope of reducing gun violence. This will be a marquee issue in Washington and throughout the country over the next several months, and media coverage will only intensify.
With that said, too few journalists have a solid understanding of guns and gun violence. Here are three major things the media gets wrong.

Obviously, read the whole thing. The second is more along the lines of the canary in the coal mine, on the collapse of even the pretense of a free media. From Ace of Spades:

And I've mentioned this before, but I'm truly alarmed about it: What we are witnessing is the full and seamless fusion of media power with government power.
The media used to hide it a bit, in their actions; they would temper their scorn of conservatism, throw them a bone now and again just to prove they were capable of such a thing.
No longer.

The media no longer hides it in their actions. They are fully fused with the Obama Administration and DNC. The only way in which they do hide it is by simply lying when confronted about it: They'll issue a snide denial, then go about doing precisely what it is they were accused of doing.

At my Friday "Stuck In Las Vegas" party after SHOT, my Sweetie asked Steven Hunter, who of course won a Pulitzer Prize while he was at the Washington Post, what happened to responsible journalism...how did we get from "objectivity" to Pravda in record time? The short story (as she related to me) was that Steve said the huge influx of young people into journalism after Woodward/Bernstein/Watergate essentially stressed, and eventually cracked, the old news cult of objectivity. The newcomers were activists, and they saw journalism as a tool of activism — and a way to make good money from it. Hope I got that right, Steve!

7 comments:

As Caleb over at Gun Nuts put it, when you carry a gun, you give up your right to be angry, and SO much of the statists belief system is wrapped up in the idea of "if you're not outraged, your not paying attention".

In other words, there is no rational discussion of the issues. Any and all policies must stem from an emotional, child-like outrage and not a calm discussion of the actual facts.

My wife went to school for photo-journalism about a decade and a half ago. She relates a curiculum that about sums up what is going on in the journalism world. Her instructors stressed that one must make a story happen, not report on it or search for one of interest, but to make it.

A local gun shop here went to Texas for Industry meetings for the gun shortages. This is what they were told and they posted it to their face book page. I copied it and now I'm going to paste here. ( told them I was doing so) They also said that there would be more updates *shrugs*Here you go. From their page:

Status UpdateBy Valley Guns IIAttention F.B. fans: to follow will be several IMPORTANT Info updates about the status of the gun industry currently, followed by an INVENTORY UPDATE: 1) We traveled to Texas for Industry meetings concerning the shortages, here's what we were told. Smith & Wesson-is running at Full capacity making 300+ guns/day-mainly M&P pistols. They are unable to produce any more guns to help with the shortages. RUGER: Plans to increase from 75% to 100% in the next 90 days. FNH: Moving from 50% production to 75% by Feb 1st and 100% by March 1. Remington-Maxed out! Armalite: Maxed out. DPMS: Can't get enough parts to produce any more product. COLT: Production runs increasing weekly...bottle necked by Bolt carrier's. LWRC:Making only black guns, running at full capacity...can't get enough gun quality steel to make barrels. Springfield Armory: Only company who can meet demand but are running 30-45 days behind.

AMMO: Every caliber is now Allocated! We are looking at a nation wide shortage of all calibers over the next 9 months. All plants are producing as much ammo as possible w/ of 1 BILLION rnds produced weekly. Most is military followed by L.E. and civilians are third in line. MAGPUL is behind 1 MILLION mags, do not expect any large quanties of magpul anytime soon. RELOADERS!!!!

ALL Remington, Winchester, CCI & Federal primers are going to ammo FIRST. There are no extra's for reloading purposes....it could be 6-9 months b/f things get caught up. Sorry for the bleek news, but now we know what to expect in the coming months. Stay tuned, we'll keep you posted. To follow is our inventory update for 1/26/13. Please share this info with your shooting buddies. Shoot safe!

"you give up the right to get angry..." i've dealt with this for years, telling a state trooper "i carry my gun because you won't be there when i run into trouble." when someone asks politely, i reply politely and try to educate them a litle bit. the angry ones i just walk away from, though once when an angry fool asked "what would you do if i took that gun away from you" i replied "i'd break both of your arms" ending the conversation by walking away. when i hear "somebody should shoot that s.o.b" referring to some politician or other moron i just give them the look you give a dog thats just made a mess in public.

All good stuff. It occurred to me long ago that the Mormon church didn't ban concealed weapons in their Utah churches because they were anti-gun. They banned licensed, concealed weapons in their Utah churches because they didn't like MY gun. The elite leadership (15 of them) have armed bodyguards escorting them whenever they set foot outside, and whenever they come to a Utah chapel. So, it's not guns that they don't like.....it's MY gun. Or rather, ME. So, I fired them. No more money for you, Skippy.

S&W must be making a lot more than 300+ guns per day....maybe that figure is off by one zero. Before Sandy Hook, AR makers were spitting out 45,000 rifles per MONTH. That's over a half million each year. The supply chain was barely able to handle the 3% of the population that was awake. Now, 30% are awake, so the system is hopelessly overwhelmed. As more and more people wake up and want to arm themselves, they will perpetuate the situation we have today. Don't look to see any break in this until The One is out of office and replaced by someone more conservative/libertarian.